Nesting

So I've been busy nesting.  By nesting I mean sewing a car seat cover and car seat blanket canopy thingy.  I also sewed a matching nursing cover.  Don't ask me why I felt the neeed to color coordinate, but I did.  Not only that, but the crib is a dark brown with lime green bedding.  Yep, I'm a crazy pregnant lady!

Despite being really busy with school and projects, Chad has been so much help.  In fact he's probably cleaned more than I have to get ready for the baby and for my mom to come and visit.  I love the guy what can I say? 

Me  at 38 1/2 weeks.  This will be the one and only belly shot.

 I. Detest. Them.

 A belly shot only proves to me that not only do I feel uncomfortable, but I look uncomfortable too.

I'm supposed to go in to the hospital Sunday night and they'll start me on Cytotech. Whoo hoo for sleeping in the hospital an extra night!?  Monday morning they'll start the Pit and we'll be on our way to meeting Little T.  And yes, we really are still having a boy.  We had to have two more ultrasounds here in Texas and a certain appendage is still there. 

How I spend my day.

Lately a lot of my day has been spent doing this. 

Just watching Mooch  do this and rebuilding his "Pillow house" when he inevitably knocks it down. 

The Raccoon

Friday afternoon we were getting ready for the trunk or treat and I was getting dinner together.  I happened to look out the kitchen window and see this...

Raccoon's are nocturnal and this was at 4:30 in the afternoon.  That's when I noticed it was twitching and rolling around in one spot.  I immediately thought, "holy crap that thing's got rabies."  We made sure to keep the boys inside.  Cowboy sat and watched it for 5 minutes before I shut all the blinds and tried to pretend it was not out there. 

I'm not sure if it was sick or hurt.  They've been demolishing the house next door to us for the past week.  So I don't know if it got hurt from that or was sick.  Either way, it was clearly at death's door.  Since I didn't want to have to deal with a dead raccoon let alone the live one.  I called animal control.  They sent someone out and no more raccoon problem. 

Cowboy has been praying for the raccoon daily to get feeling better.  I'm pretty sure that wherever it is dead animals go, it's defintely feeling better now.

Cute-isms

There isn't a whole lot of excitment in our lives right now.  Chad and Cowboy are going to school and Mooch and I are just chilling at home.  So its hard to blog about nothing.

I've always thought of our blog as sort of a family journal.  I'm terrible about writing things down and taking pictures.  Having the blog makes me do both of those things.  I just happen to share them with all of you. 

This is one of those posts that I'm writing down more for me and the boys.  So on those bad days I can sit down and remember that they really can be cute. . . sometimes. 

Here's a little Cowboy-ism

  While putting the boys to bed the other night Cowboy and I had a conversation that went a little like this....

Cowboy: Mom, can you get on your computer and write a letter to Santa?

Me: What do you want it to say?

Cowboy: Dear Santa, Cowboy wants a new xbox.  Make sure your write our last name so he knows it's me.

Me: Let's wait a bit and then we'll write a letter.

When we moved our old xbox didn't survive the trip.  So he's been deprived of his Star Wars lego game.  Clearly it's a huge issue for him.  We'll just have to see what Santa ends up bringing for him.

Now here's Mooch's

While growing up if we asked my Dad he would tell us stories about when he was a kid.  Most of them involved chickens, his brothers, or other funny stories from his childhood.  Every once in awhile the boys will ask Chad or me to tell them a story.  Most of the requests are for one of the five stories about me getting stitches.  Anyways... apparently I start the story with "When I was a little girl" or something like that.   Well yesterday Mooch climbed into bed in the morning to snuggle up to Chad and me.  He got settled in and then....

Mooch:  "I tell a story."

Me: "okay go ahead."

Mooch: "When I was a little boy..."

He then proceeded to gibber out what I think was a sentence in English.

That was it.  The whole story.  So I asked him to tell me another one.  Again he started with the "When I was a little boy."  

To you it's probably not that funny. But Chad and I were laughing pretty hard.

So this is a note to self.  Brooke, your kids really can be cute.  Sometimes.

   

Welcome to the Jungle

So when we got to our new house we made this lovely discovery.

Yep, that grass is somewhere around 3 feet tall. 

It was supposed to be mowed and maintained until we moved in. Clearly it was not.
 When they finally did come, there were 2 guys on riding mowers and 2 guys using weed-wackers.  It took the 4 of them an hour to get it done.  Tht's what happens when you have to go over the lawn 3 times.

There's still a lot of mulch down in the grass that we'll have to rake up but fortunately for us, the young men from our church like doing yard work service projects.  After that's cleaned up, housing maintenance is going to spray for ants- which are of the fire variety- and spiders and whatever other bugs are living under there.  So hopefully we'll eventually get to use the big backyard!
Oh and they fixed the fence.  Maintenance is actually quite quick to respond.

Peace Like a River?

Well our first Tropical Storm was quite the experience.

Our house is on the corner of two streets. We have a creek that runs behind the house and to the South of the House. Well the 2 streets both drain to that creek and apparently every street connected to those streets as well as 2 large parking lots.

The storm hit Tuesday night and was just a steady downpour. I took Cowboy to school yesterday and drove through a couple of small ponds to get him there- No, really, ducks could have lived in them. 

At around 10 o'clock, the rain picked up and the drain couldn't quite keep up. The rain picked up more and those 2 streets turned into literal rivers. I know it got up to door level on a few of the cars parked on the street.

After about an hour the water had made it partially up way the driveway. So we went and made sure everything that could get ruined if wet was off the garage floor. Then I called maintenance. I was able to talk to the head maintenance guy to see if they had any sandbags to put in front of our garage. He said they'd be over as fast as they could.

They weren't fast enough.

We ended up having the garage flood. Mind you it didn't fill up because it was able to drain right out the man door on the back of the garage. But the water didn't really slow down and actually made its way across the lawn and up against the house. It then started to go around the corner of the house and across the back lawn to the creek there. Another 7 inches or so and it would have been coming through the front door. Fortunately for us, the rain let up just enough for the drainage to catch up and we didn't have to deal with flooding. Because apparently flood insurance doesn't kick in for 30 days around here so we would have been in deep trouble.

About an hour after the near flood the maintenance guys dropped off enough sand bags to line the garage doors. So we won't have to worry about it as much next time.

I'm bummed we didn't get any pictures but I hope we don't have a chance to take more pictures anytime soon. Despite a few wet food storage boxes and a few puddles of water, we're alright. Ahh fun times!!

I will say one thing, Texas is sure keeping us on our toes!

I need this like I need a staple to the head

On Wednesday Nights Chad has a class from 7-10. So I put the boys down around 7:30. I was literally shutting the door and saying goodnight when Mooch made some demand for juice or swimming or something. I don't really even remember. Whatever it was I said, "No." and he decided to throw his head back and flop on the bed in protest. There was only one slight problem he hit his head right on the edge of his headboard. 

I went in to soothe him and touched the back of his head to see if there was a bump. There wasn't a bump but there was a lot of blood. I got him into the bathroom to get a look at what we were up against. He had a 1 1-1/2 inch split on the back of his head. Not something a bandaid is going to hold together anytime soon.
So I'm holding a rag to his head and can't find my insurance card. That's when I have to get Cowboy to hold the rag so I can print off a copy of our insurance card.  Cowboy held it together pretty good.  Mooch was just confused on what the red stuff everywhere was.

Luckily I knew where the hospital was and got us there. Mooch was a champ though. Cowboy was tired and curled up in a chair in the waiting room. Mooch however was dancing and running around like his usual self. If it weren't for the blood all over his shirt and the back of his head no one whould have thought he was the patient in the ER.

He didn't cry AT ALL during the whole thing. I was ready to cry but he only winced a little while they were numbing up his head. But he is now the proud owner of 5 staples in the back of his head.  He's one tough kid!

We were there for 2 hours which wasn't too bad but stunk because we didn't get home until a little before 10. I told Cowboy that we'd just sleep in and go to school late. Nope they were both up at 7. So I'm sure Cowboy is going to be a zombie at school today.

So far Texas is awesome! Hope you're picking up on the heavy sarcasm!

Moving and Air Mattresses

Oh boy is this going to be a long whiney blog post!

On Friday the 6th of August our move began. The movers showed up with 3 women, an older man, and one big guy. They started out strong in their packing and Chad and I honestly thought they’d be done by 3 or so. NOPE. Not only were they not finished by then, their boss decided they should stop packing our stuff so he could make it to Wendover for a concert.

Two guys came back Monday morning and finished packing everything in an hour and half. They then proceeded to tell me that they had forgotten the paper work for the inventory sheets. Which meant that I couldn’t prove what they had taken on the truck with them including my couches, my dining table, our beds, and my nice set of pans all of which I’d be ticked if they somehow didn’t manage to show up in Texas and which I’d never get back. They insisted that I could sign the papers and they’d inventory it at their warehouse. Needless to say I didn’t sign the papers and luckily a rep from Hill AFB pulled up in the middle of the bullying. So fun! Needless to say he gave them a talking to and followed them down and watched them inventory the stuff on the truck. We’ll see if it all makes it. I'm pretty sure it won't.

I thought our moving fun was over.  Boy, was I wrong. The Utah movers were supposed to keep our things in storage until Monday the 16th and then it would follow us to Texas. NOPE. On Thursday the 12th, Chad got a call from the moving company that our stuff was ready to be delivered IN TEXAS and what time could we meet them. Seeing as how we were in fact STILL IN UTAH, we weren’t going to meet them. So they put our stuff in storage and Chad scheduled with her that they would deliver our stuff on Friday the 20th.

So yet again we thought our moving fun was over.
NOPE.

We drove to Texas with little to no problems. The kids were as good as they could be in the car and in the hotels for 3 days and 4 nights. We got our house keys and got Trey registered for school. Thursday Chad decides to call the moving company to see what time they would be delivering our stuff on Friday the 20th. The guy had absolutely no record of a scheduled delivery. Apparently the lady he talked to didn’t schedule the delivery with them. The soonest he could fit us in Friday the 27th. Chad then called the Air Force reps to see if we could get more funding for hotels and food. NOPE. So we’ve “moved” into our house with absolutely nothing but the bags we’ve been living out of for the last 2 weeks.

We do have a fridge and stove/oven. We do have running water, air conditioning, and a floor to sleep on. Chad and I bought an air mattress, a frying pan, food, and a few other things to get us by. Most of which was stuff we were going to have to buy anyways. But we have no furniture.  An air mattress + pregnancy does not equal a good night’s sleep. I seriously woke up sore. So fun!

I tried to get a hold of the bishop of our ward but, it being the week before school everyone was on vacation. After church Sunday we were able to get a table and chairs, some kitchen stuff, and 2 more air mattresses for the boys.

So although it’s not ideal at least we’re not out a thousand dollars in hotel and food money. But it will definitely be nice to have our stuff.  We got internet today which helps me feel less like we're camping in our own house. 

But so help me if my stuff isn’t here Friday I’m going to totally lose it!

Oh and did I mention that Sunday was Chad and my 7th anniversary. I made him a lovely meal of Mac and Cheese.

It was a very special day.

Seven years ago I never would have guessed this is where we'd be and the situation we'd be in.  If in another seven years I'm sleeping on an air mattress in an empty house, we may have to reevaluate some things.

If my life were a TV show...

it would be called My 3 Sons. 

Yep it's official we're having another boy!  For those of you who can't really tell what you're looking at it's proof that it's a boy.

The due date changed a whopping 2 days when they measured the femur.  I'm pretty sure the due date should still be at Dec 1 because, well, genetically my kids are bound to have mutant femurs.  I mean look at the kid it's clearly obvious his femurs are much longer than his shins!  That's where ALL of my 5 foot 10 inch height is at.  So of course my kids are all destined to be tall beanpoles.  You really can't fight genetics. 

Sweet Dreams

To me nothing says sweet dreams better than pulling back the covers on your bed to see a piece of mouse poop on your pillow. 

No really that's what I saw.  I stared at it for a minute.  Then moved Chad's poop free pillow to see 3 more pieces of mouse poop under it.  Obviously we changed the sheets and then proceeded to try and find where the heck the mouse had come from.

We knew we had a mouse that kept getting in to some of the lower built in drawers where we keep Chad's shorts.  But I had no idea it was in my room living under my bed.  I promise we dont' have a ton of crap under there either.  But I did discover a half eaten granola bar that was probably sustaining this little mouse's life. 

We did set up a bunch of sticky traps a week ago.  We checked one of the sticky traps only to find a strip of mouse hair left on it. So there's a mouse with a wax job running around.

I spent my Saturday vacuuming up every crumb in the entire basement. We're talking move every piece of furniture kind of vacuuming.  Then, Chad searched for holes and set up 8 of the old school wood snap traps.   

As of now we have caught one mouse.  I'm pretty sure there are more.  I'm just confused at how we can go ALL winter without a mouse and now in June we seem to be having an invasion?

The wonders of dehydration

 Now that the morning sickness is starting to go away, sort of.  I thought I was feeling okay.  Then I started randomly geting really shaky and a little dizzy.  I chalked it up to low blood sugar or low iron. 

As I was asking the Dr. about it Monday the nurse was taking my blood pressure.  Yeah so my heart rate was 120 just from sitting there.  Ummm not good!  Needless to say they did a cardiogram. Fortunately nothing was abnormal.  Apparently, I'm really dehydrated and have officially been told I need to walk 2-3 miles a day. 

I can proudly say I drank well over 64 ounces yesterday and walked to my mom's and back which is .04 miles short of 2 miles while pushing Jack in the stroller.   Yes, I can tell you're all so proud. 

Ugh you'd think I'd have this pregnancy thing figured out by now!

Oh and when we listened to the baby's heartbeat at the appointment we could hear a lot of scratching sounds with the heartbeat.  Those scratching sounds were from the baby moving around.  So either we hit "active time" for he/she or this child will be exactly like their brothers.  Woo hoo?

We find out July 8th what we're having.

Oh my sons!

I love Mooch. 

Every night around bedtime he starts to pretend he's an animal.  The animal changes nightly.  But he meows like a cat, barks like a dog, and hops like a frog.  

The go to favorite is the cat though.  He'll crawl over and lay his head in your lap expected to be petted.  He also claws at the door when it's shut. 

Don't ask me where he gets this stuff, but it's pretty funny.
I also Love Cowboy.

Yesterday we had to leave for Salt Lake pretty early and I needed to drop the boys off at my parents at 6:30.  Well Cowboy sleeps until 7:30 usually.  I went in to wake him up at 6 and he said, "Mom, can I finish watching my show, in my eyes?" How could I refuse that request?  SO I let him lay there for another 5 minutes before dragging him to the car.

Oh, how I love my boys.

It was Soap Poisoning!

In the last few weeks Cowboy has discovered swearing.  It started with taking the Lord's name in vain.  Now it's moved on to the "S" word.  I have no idea where he's getting this.  I will admit if I'm going to swear it is the "S" word but it takes quite a bit for me to say it now.  (Not so much when I was playing volleyball. I was a potty mouth)

The first time he says whatever word, we sit down and talk about why he shouldn't say it and ask him where he got it.  Then I tell him if I hear it again he gets soap in his mouth.  I don't know what else to do with the kid.  Ahh fun times with children.

But I will be honest, I can't help but think about "A Christmas Story" every time I put that bar of soap in his mouth.

The drain came down and the Floods came up

Remember in December when the washer upstairs drained straight into the boys room?  Well, I do.  I was lucky enough to relive it again this weekend.

Friday morning, I was just sitting in my room.  When I hear what sounds like a sink running.  I'm thinking to myself, "Those little stinks left the sink going."  I go in to investigate and what do I see?  A waterfall pouring straight down through the boys closet. I ran upstairs and turned off the washer.  Apparently, the drain line from the washer pushed itself out of the pipe that drains the water down stairs.

Well I thought that I caught it pretty quick.  I thought that it wouldn't be a very big mess.  I thought it would be really easy to clean up. 

I spent 3 hours Friday morning using a carpet cleaner and a shop vac sucking up the entire washer load of water, sans one gallon that made its way onto the carpet upstairs. I emptied the carpet cleaner out 12 times and the shop vac twice.  The bathroom had a half an inch of water. The boys bedroom was totally soaked. The carpet pad was literally soaked all the way through. It was literally a sponge.  But the pad is dry and the carpet is dry but one small patch in a corner.

Fortunately it's been warm enough that we could leave windows open.  So we're not living in some sort of moldy smelling swamp.

During all of this Chad discovered that the plumbing for the whole deal  (that was just re-done in December) was NOT up to code.  So, Chad re-plumbed the entire drain line.  He also included a lovely strap so that it couldn't push itself out again.  Here's hoping we don't have to go through this a fourth time!

It's Monday morning and the carpet is almost dry.

Does this make me old?

It's official. I think I'm behind the times.

When I was younger I used to giggle at my mother and father's technological behind-ed-ness (It's my blog, I can make up words if I want to).  They didn't know how to work e-mail, they refused to have an answering machine, it took them forever to figure out their voicemail on their cell phones.  Well they've got their i-phones, GPS, DVR, and whatever else now.  I'm sure my mom is reading this with a little smirk on her face.

Does it make me old that I HATE text messaging?  I do see the value in it.  I mean you can communicate at times when talking on the phone isn't convenient.  But using it as the ONLY form of communication?  I don't get that.  I also don't want to pay for that.  OK, my husband doesn't want to pay for that.

Also what the heck is with people being addicted to Facebook?  I don't get that.  Yes, it is fun to keep in touch with everyone.  It's fun to hear news and stories.  But updating your status every 20 minutes? Come on! No one cares! And if Facebook is your vice, yes I do realize I've just offended you.  But me, I'm sticking to my blogger vice. 

Oh and my favorite with Facebook is when people say when they are going on vacation.  If it weren't against the law I would break into their homes and leave them a note asking how their trip went.  The worst I've seen is when someone posted which elementary school their kid goes to.
Oh and what's with the moron's posting their addresses and phone numbers all over?  Yet again, I'm sure I've offended someone. 

It's not like my blog has uber security but I'm not dumb enough to post extremely personal information on here. In fact I should go back and remove any mention of the town I live in.

I PROMISE criminals are smart and they can and will hack into anything.  This includes any "private" blog that you are reading.

Wow this just turned into a rant about protecting yourself on the internet.  When really I was just laughing at myself for not texting, or having an iphone, or really even caring about keeping up with technology.  I'm sure in 10 years my boys are going to be giggling at their poor parents for being soooo behind the times.  I'll shut up now.

I funny

Although sometimes I really do think I'm funny, it wasn't me yelling it for 7 minutes in the car. 

I drive Chad to and from where his van pool meets every morning and afternoon-at least on the days I need the car.  It's about a 7 minute drive.  Well, on our way home yesterday Mooch started yelling non-sensical things at us.  He then would laugh at whatever joke he had just told.  Then he started yelling, "I funny."  He would then babble something again, laugh, and yell, "I funny." It was a cycle that could not be broken.  By the time we got home we were all giggling with him.  What do you know . . . he actually is pretty funny.

Bakery Rock

I've said it before and I'll say it again... I tend to associate music to memories.

So this morning while driving Chad to work at the crack of dawn-- dawn wasn't even remotely ready to crack at 4:30 this morning-- I was scanning through the radio stations.  I came across a familiar song and started singing along to it.  That's when I realized it was the good old classic rock station.

Before the year 2002, I wasn't a big fan.  Don't get me wrong, I love Queen as much as the next person.  But I wasn't exactly willing to listen to a classic rock radio station if I had a choice otherwise. 

Once upon a time, I really didn't have a choice otherwise.  I worked in the BYU-Idaho food services Bakery for three semesters and started--you guessed it-- at the crack of dawn.  Two of the full time bakers , Sean and Randy, started baking bread at 1 or 2 in the morning.  So when I got to work for my 3 hour shift they were already listening to the classic rock station and had been doing so for 5 hours.  Occasionally we'd mutiny and try to take over the radio.  But that would usually only last a song or two before Randy switched it back. It was so annoying at the time.

It's funny how now when I hear those songs I like them.  I don't know if I was slowly brainwashed or if I just developed a liking for classic rock.  Either way every time I hear these songs it puts a smile on my face and makes me think of one awesome job I had during school.  Mmmmm the bakery.....

four point eight nine

How to help your 4.89 year old to be opinionated and annoying:  

1. Help them to develop the right attitude.  They must understand that the best way to correct someone is to say phrases like, "Umm helllllooooo," or "Actually," with an attitude that implies the person they are speaking to is an absolute idiot or their mother.  He's also developed a lovely eye roll when he doesn't want to listen to me.  What the heck!?! He's only 4!

2. Teach them that the only reason they have to do chores is so that they can play computer games. We're developing a sense of entitlment at an early age.

3. They must learn early on that crying is the only way to respond when faced with something they do not like. Although they know that crying does not get them what they want-unless it’s a swift trip to timeout- they must always always cry.

Oh I've got more.  I love the kid but he's seriously driving me nuts right now! We're working on all of it.  But seriously is this normal?   I don't know where he's getting his material for the attitude.  But I'm going to blame Sponge Bob.  He and a few other cartoons have been officially banned from our home now.  Ahh so fun actually having to deal with a child with his own opinions!

Church Ball

So I've been playing me some Church Ball.  Don't ask me why I'm writing like that.  It just seemed appropriate when speaking about Church Basketball.  But the church ball is taking me back 10 years and not in a good way. 

I pretty much stink at basketball. Everyone expects that I can play because I'm tall and because my older brother, Trent, was a basketball phenom.  No really, after playing a game I had a teacher come up and ask "Isn't Trent your brother?" I think he was just checking to make sure that the reason I sucked at basketball was because I wasn't from the right family.  Ha!  Somehow I was a starter my freshmen and sophomore years.  I still don't understand that one. 

Anyways...

With Church ball, yet again I'm tall and expected to play with a certain level of basketball skills.  I can sort-of jump and I can catch a pass, but can I shoot the ball?  Not really.  Saturday, I shot one over the backboard and it was awesome!

I did totally stuff an old lady. And yes, I am proud of that.

Banana on your forehead

Cowboy has discovered knock knock jokes.  It's been going on for awhile now. At Joyschool they have snacktime.  Apparently, Cowboy has been busting out his knock knock jokes every time. All the other 3 and 4 year olds think he's hilarious and they all laugh at the jokes.  So my son his somewhat of a ham.  Really who didn't see this one coming?

His all time favorite joke goes a little something like this:

Cowboy: "Knock, knock."

Me: "Who's there?"

Cowboy: "Banana on your forehead!"

Yeah that is the entire joke.  

Then....

We were eating dinner the other night and what do I hear Mooch say?  "Knock, knock!" They then proceeded to laugh themselves silly.